A Postscript on Preservation and Transformation in urban planning and architecture In a recent essay on the redevelopment of central Pforzheim and the impending demolition of two buildings from the postwar period (cfr. Was bleibt von der Stadt des Wiederaufbaus? In: Pforzheimer Zeitung, 08-15-2026, p. 22), I wrote a sentence that was meant almost as …
Beyond Labor: AI, Public Infrastructure, and the Future of Social Cohesion
This essay argues that artificial intelligence represents a structural rupture rather than merely another technological revolution. Unlike previous waves of mechanization, AI increasingly threatens not only physical labor but also cognitive middle-class professions, thereby undermining the industrial assumption that work guarantees income, dignity, and social participation. The resulting crisis is interpreted less as a technological …
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Casa Luna and Casa Guna: Ethical Monumentality at the Human Register
Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s Casa Luna and Casa Guna are often described through the familiar vocabulary of contemporary concrete architecture—monolith, prism, fortress, abstraction. Yet what makes these houses persuasive is not primarily their formal bravura and severe minimalism, but the way each project re-stages the ethical question of Brutalism’s heritage: how can architectural frankness, mass, and …
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Würde durch Architektur
Medellín, bislang mehr berüchtigt als geschätzt, birgt architektonische Schätze, die geradezu sinnbildlich für den Weg der Stadt aus den düsteren Schatten der Vergangenheit stehen. Sie sind aber nicht nur Glanzmomente zeitgenössischen Bauens; wie Aníbal Gaviria - seit 2012 Bürgermeister der Stadt - versichert, sind sie Ausdruck eines Versprechens auf mehr Menschlichkeit. Grundsätzlich betrachtet, ist es …
Luigi Monzo 